A rounded approach

Last month we spoke about stealing taking inspiration from your fellow French learners as a way of maintaining your motivation and ensuring your progrès*.

One of the privileges of being a tutor is being able to observe the different ways our students approach their French learning. We have ringside seats to their methods and this is particularly evident when we teach people one-on-one.

It was during a recent private lesson with a very long-term client (Janelle) that our talk turned to that all-too-common feeling of overwhelm. Almost all of us experience it at the very début* and that’s to be expected, given the sheer volume of new concepts you’re being exposed to. However, even after you’ve gotten over the shock of learning (literally) a new language, it still crops up and seemingly comes from nowhere. It’s la peur*, or worse, la certitude* even, that you’re never, ever going to be able to get a handle on this language that you love so much.

It still happens to me from time to time, most recently yesterday, in fact, when I was in the online forum of my favourite dictionary (who says I’m not fun?). I was reading an exchange between two senior members and I had no clue what they were talking about. More distressing was the way they were volleying ideas back and forth to one another, as though anyone with half a cerveau* would not only have been able to follow along, but likely to add son grain de sel* at any second. It makes me feel like I’m being left out of a club I really, really want to belong to.

I’ve observed this in myself and others for many years now and have come to the conclusion that this feeling of overwhelm crops up in the cruelest of ways. It is often precipitated by a mini-breakthrough, which is when you should be feeling really great about your French. When a concept you’ve been grappling with finally becomes a little clearer, you’d expect a moment of satisfaction, but more often than not what follows is a sense of helplessness. It’s at this point we often hear our students exclaim in frustration: “When am I ever going to understand this language?”

It’s like you’re on descent in a plane, travelling to a new destination and the clouds part just enough for you to get your first glimpse of the beauty of the ground below. It can be thrilling. Then the pilot descends some more and you’re through the clouds and all of a sudden the vastness of the terrain is laid out before you. It can feel overwhelming and the idea of conquering it impossible. Your conscious competence is cruelly ripped from your grasp as your eyes open to all the other things you’ve not yet mastered, where seconds before you didn’t even know they existed. Moins on en sait, mieux on se porte*, for a time, at least.

Enter Janelle and her idea of the concentric circles of learning.

Most people I speak to consider language acquisition to be linear, much like a running race. You start at one end, and the idea is to get to the finish line in as quick a time as possible without tripping, let alone breaking a leg. We’ve talked before about the freedom to be found in dispensing with the very idea of there even being a finishing line, but Janelle’s idea is different once again. And as she explained it to me, I could sense how liberating it could be.

Janelle visualises her learning as a series of circles, starting very small in the middle, and increasing in diameter the further out she goes. For her, the smallest circle in the middle represents her knowledge at the very start of her French adventure.

At the time, she’d probably learned some greetings, the numbers 0-100, some basic vocabulary and perhaps the alphabet. Everything was new to her and likely felt both uncomfortable and exciting, but a few lessons later, those concepts started to settle. She was then able to look beyond her first little circle, and at least countenance the idea of adding some new words to her vocabulary or perhaps learning a new verb or two.

Over the years, the cycle has repeated itself over and over, and Janelle’s circles have grown larger and larger. Of course the best laid schemes o' mice an' men meant that she couldn’t avoid concepts from the outer circles occasionally infiltrating her current sphere.

Instead of feeling overwhelmed, though, she could simply tell herself that it had come from an outer circle for which she was not yet ready, and could continue on with her learning. It is not that she completely ignored the concept, it was that she knew to where park it in order to be able to deal with it when her brain was ready for more.

I love Janelle’s idea as it feels more expansive and organic that the traditional route of chasing down the language until you ‘catch’ it. I can almost see the circles expanding and contracting, like a living breathing organism, with each out breath leaving the whole a little larger than before.

I also really like the thought of accepting the size of your circle and focusing your energies there, where they belong. At least for the time being. As mentioned, while you’re busy working on that circle, interlopers from the outer range will come visiting, but there is real relief in simply acknowledging them and then politely asking them to stand aside for a bit, while you get on with the business at hand.

Merci, Janelle, d’avoir partagé ton expérience avec moi. Je crois que ton idée aidera beaucoup de personnes*.

progress | start | fear | certainty | brain | his/her two cents’ worth | Ignorance is bliss | Thank you, Janelle, for having shared your experience with me. I think your idea will help a lot of people.